


I Sleep Beside You

by We_deserve_rainbows



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, Multi, Sleepy Cuddles, light light angst at the very beginning of ivys chapter, maybe a little bit of a character study, very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_deserve_rainbows/pseuds/We_deserve_rainbows
Summary: Raphaella, Ivy, and the Toy Soldier, care for each other.
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria/Raphaella la Cognizi/The Toy Soldier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	1. I Get To Hold You

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by a song my friend wrote called "Love Right Now" its so good!!! you should listen to it! (they're gonna make a fancy cleaned up version soon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkcNMiZxotY listen to it please!!

Raphaella knew what love was. 

She knew what it was scientifically. She could recite the chemicals that made people feel happiness and love. She knew the statistics of how long it took for lust to turn to love and she had made the graph on the average amount of time that it took for infatuation to turn to dedication within the Mechanisms.

But, she also knew what love was to the individual. She knew the way that her heart sped up when Ivy held her hand and the way that she smiled when the Toy Soldier sang for her. 

She loved both, she loved both the intellectual and the qualitative aspects of love, just as she loved each of the Mechanisms so dearly. 

She lay here, drifting off to sleep with two of her beloveds. 

Her heart was content as she held the weight of Ivy's hand in her own. A sigh of satisfaction left her lips while the Toy Soldier continued it's diligent stroking of the metal feathers on the wing that was wrapped around both Ivy and itself.

When she had first arrived on the Aurora she had been mistrusted and kept at arms distance. She doesn't blame them, of course, knowing what she knows now. But it had hurt her. It had hurt to see their frightened eyes for a moment before they rushed out of the room that she had just entered. All but one of the Mechanisms, that is. The Toy Soldier had had its own reservations to trusting her, but it hadn’t avoided her. It had made her tea and sat with her, it listened to her story and told her it's own in turn. She had fallen in love with it first, before any of the others even began to talk to her. 

And then there was Ivy, who didn't trust her, but who heard the Soldier speak of her, and decided to give the winged scientist a chance. She sat with her and talked to her, she told Raph about stories from worlds that had long since fallen, and she sat with bated breath as Raphaella told her of the floating cities on her home world, the way that the sun bathed them all in golden sunlight as they flew. And she told her of the way she fell, she let Ivy catalogue her past, but it was only for the two of them. 

Yes, Raphaella la Cognizi knew what love was.


	2. In The Tide Of Your Breathing

The Toy Soldier couldn't sleep. This, apparently, was not a deciding factor in who Ivy and Raphaella wanted to nap with them. 

Even after all these years, it was still hard for the Toy Soldier to accept it when the other Mechanisms actually _wanted_ to spend time with it. But yes, they wanted to be able to hold it as they drifted off under layers of soft fabric.

There were no orders, just Ivy holding a sleepy Raph in her arms and quiet questions about wanting to take a nap with them. It nodded happily and got up from where it was whittling and picked up both of them, startling Raphaella awake. Then she saw the familiar face of the ever smiling Toy Soldier and she smiled briefly, before she closed her eyes again and rested her head on Ivy’s shoulder.

When the Toy Soldier arrived it set them both down gently, feeling that warmth in it's clockwork that it associated so deeply with the Mechanisms. It stood there for a few seconds, watching Raphaella and Ivy get settled under the covers. When Ivy smiled at it and nodded towards the bed, too gentle to be considered an order, it climbed in after them as gracefully as it's wooden limbs would allow.

Ivy and Raph scootched aside to allow the Toy Soldier to prop itself up on the pillows that were leaning on the headboard. It sat there and wrapped its arms around them, feeling warmth in its pretend soul as Raph wrapped her wings around both of them. 

Soon, they were both asleep and the Toy Soldier was left to its musings. 

Unsurprisingly, it's thoughts were mostly soft things about those that it loved. In particular, the ones that were currently clinging to it as they slept. 

It cared about them both so deeply in it's clockwork that it ached, it ached as it considered the years and years it had spent with them. It was acutely aware of echo and every movement that Raph and Ivy made in their sleep, each time Raph’s lips turned up in the shadow of a smile it thought back to all the times that _it_ had been the one to make her smile. 

The Toy Soldier, being a robot, and therefore having a _much_ higher memory capacity than most of its companions, could remember each and every time Raphaella had looked at it with that warmth in her eyes and smiled. It could remember all of the things it had said or done to make her smile like that, and it kept careful log of them. Oh how it loved making her smile. 

It did not have nerves in the same way a human did, but it felt the lightest change in the amount of pressure that Ivy held it with. It noticed when her brow furrowed and her grip on it's uniform tightened, and it also noticed when her breathing evened out when she felt the soft fabric under her fingers. It really liked to imagine that the familiar fabric was what calmed her down.

It had cared about Ivy for so long, perhaps since she had first come up to it after their very first show and asked it where it's uniform was from, curiosity filling her voice with hope. There was no order, just a question, but nonetheless, the Toy Soldier gave her a delightful tale about where it had gotten this particular uniform. And her delighted laugh when it had finished was still crystal clear in it's mind.

The Toy Soldier might not have been human, and it might not have been a person. But it was cared about, and it cared in return. It cared so much.


	3. And I Feel Found

Ivy was terrified, terrified and lost and she didn't know where she was. She sat up, the terror of a nightmare she couldn't remember still fresh in her mind.

Soft. Soft and warm.

With her eyes still hazy from sleep all she could recognize was the comfortable place where she was and the bodies pressed against hers. For a few seconds there was silence except for her panicked breathing slowing down slightly, and then someone spoke.

“Ivy, Are You Alright?” the person who she had been clinging onto in her sleep, apparently was still awake. Her eyes darted to the voice and she took a moment to let her eyes adjust. She processed what she heard and what she saw, and although there was no recognition, there was a flood of warmth and content in her mind and the thought that _you, I love you._

This person seemed to know her, yes, ‘Ivy’ that was her.. Yes the memories were coming back now. She blinked as images and knowledge filled her head, right, the Toy Soldier had asked her if she was okay, “Yes, little star, just nightmares, nothing to worry about.” 

The Toy Soldier nodded, “Right, Would You Like A Hug?” 

She considered the question. This person, ‘Ivy’, does she like hugs? She knew enough to know that in a few minutes she would be the person she had been when she went to sleep, but for the time being she would work off what she knew, and she knew that a hug would do her some good right now. 

“Yes, I would like a hug.” She said, and scooched forward on the bed to wrap her arms tight around the wooden torso of the Toy Soldier, pressing her cheek to the soft fabric of the Soldier’s shirt. 

They stayed like that for a while, Ivy’s breathing became steady as the Toy Soldier ran a steady hand through her hair and held her close. When she sat up in fear she had knocked the wing of the person she now knew to be Raphaella la Cognizi off of her, but when she lied back down the wing hand found it's way to wrap itself around Ivy again.

She took a deep breath and smiled, she was herself again, and she was okay. The last wisps of fear faded as the weight of her beloveds surrounded her, she was safe, and she was loved.

**Author's Note:**

> hhh they are cute


End file.
